


Agency

by SofiaDragon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alien faith mentioned, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death still happened, Civil War Team Iron Man, Confused Scott Lang, Gen, Good Loki (Marvel), I gave Loki an open mic at a Press Conference, Jewish faith mentioned, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Loki Gets a Hug (Marvel), Loki fixes it, Loki went to Therapy, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Responsibility, Sneaky Frigga (Marvel), Thor is a Good Bro (Marvel), Wanda was messing with Team Cap, What Have I Done, light salt, never do that, not wanda maximoff friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28024146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaDragon/pseuds/SofiaDragon
Summary: In the upcoming Loki series, it looks like he's a time cop going around fixing timelines.In another timeline, Frigga ignores Odin's order that her son rot in the dungeon and gets Loki some professional help to deal with his issues while he is imprisoned instead of just some books and furniture. While on the Throne pretending to be Odin, Loki decides that fighting Thanos might not be hopless and that they should organize a proper fight against the tyrant just in time for the heroes of the most likely (and preferable) battle ground to have a Civil War.This is how he sorts it all out, with a press conference and a lot of grandstanding.Can be read as a sequel to "The Norn's Tools in Another's Hands" if you want it to be. Can also be read as Loki throwing Wanda under the bus instead of it actually being Wanda's fault if that's your jam. It's Loki, some things are going to be a little unclear.
Comments: 70
Kudos: 248





	Agency

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the trailer for the new Loki series. The hype train has left the station and I am on board! Bring on the multiverse-hopping time cops making Loki work off his sins in community service by fixing the timelines the Avengers broke. Does this mean all Loki-centric fix-it fics are canon in some part of the multiverse?

Steve sighed and tried to think of anything he knew that could help with the planning. T'Challa had given the team notice the week before that they would have to leave Wakanda by the end of the month due to some political problems he was having. Steve didn't see how it was their problem that T'Challa couldn't explain things properly to his own people, and the complaints against them were clearly slander. Wanda had no reason to be using her powers on anyone here, and when Steve asked her if she'd been attacked or scared by anyone she said she hadn't been. T'Challa would honor his promise to Barnes and keep him in cryo until something could be done, so there was that, but Steve thought it was ridiculous of the King to go back on his offer of sanctuary for Steve and his team just because some people were scared of Wanda for no reason.

Still, they did have to accept that they needed to move on. The King had made a good point when he said that sitting idle for four months didn't do anyone any good, though it was downright insulting of him to bring up the work program Wakanda had for people with no other means to support themselves. He'd then laid out the total costs in American Dollars of the food, housing, and clothing they had already been given and asked if that was somehow not enough generosity given that his debt is to Barnes and not to any of the rest of them. Steve was shocked by the numbers but was smart enough that (with a moment to factor in inflation because a cup of coffee costing as much as five dollars still threw him sometimes) he could see that the itemized account wasn't artificially padded. It really wasn't at all unfair to expect a group of able-bodied people to earn their own keep and since Steve understood that he couldn't risk leading the Accords people back to Barnes by constantly crossing what should be a closed border they were unable to work as Avengers at all if they stayed in Wakanda. That T'Challa was giving them to the end of his country's traditional calendar year seemed to be something to do with their odd religion and Steve wasn't going to push on that sort of thing. The Wakandans had gone out of their way to set them up with a live stream of Sunday mass from a New York church in the common room of the guest house, so it only made sense for them to be just as respectful in return.

They had all gathered in that common room to go over options and refine their plans when one of the palace guards interrupted to turn on a live stream of a press conference. When the initial shock at what he was looking at wore off the opening commentary by the news anchor and introductions were over and Rhodes started the press conference.

"There are a lot of things that we need to cover, but King Thor has asked that Prince Loki get the chance to speak to properly explain a few things on their end. As the current leader of the Avengers, it falls on my shoulders to explain the current situation as best I can from our end."

Clint growled as he stepped up between Steve and Natasha. "Thor told us he died!"

"Clint," Natasha said. It amazed Steve how much the two spies could say to each other with a single word or even just a glance. Steve could tell that Natasha didn't want to miss a word of what Rhodes was going to say, but there was clearly a lot more in the tilt of her head and the twitch of her eye than Steve would ever pick up on.

"First of all, I've been told that due to our position within Igg-drizzle…" Rhodes cut himself off and looked skyward for a moment. "Apologies to everyone in Scandinavia. I swear I practiced these pronunciations. Yggdrasil, which is the name of the part of the universe where we live is protected by a semi-sentient nebula made mostly of dark matter with the same name. To put it in simplest terms: Our solar system orbits around the galactic center of the Milky Way inside of Yggdrasil and the roughly tree-shaped living cloud of stardust wiggles around us and all the other solar systems inside it with roughly a five-thousand-year cycle. Due to our strategic position at this part of our galactic journey, Earth is going to be more vulnerable to invasion from outside our galactic sector without the use of fancy portals opening the door from the inside for about ten years starting a few years from now. This five-thousand-year cycle starts with the Convergence, which is what Asgardians call the situation that caused what went down in London and several other parts of the world a few years back with portals to other parts of the Nine Realms opening up all over the place, and has a lot to do with dark energy and dark matter. The metaphor we're going with is a reptile shedding its skin for what the creature we all live inside of was doing, and all the weirdness was a bunch of excess energy sparking off. Predicting exactly when the renewed nebula opens up and blocks large pathways in is a bit like predicting the weather so nobody can be more precise than it will start sometime in the next decade, and lasting for no more than a decade before the roots block up the opening again."

Clint swore while Sam and Scott murmured in the background.

"This is what we were waiting for, yes?" Wanda asked. "They will need us." Steve nodded and Nat stood silent.

"I want to be clear that when I say 'dark energy and matter' I'm using the technical terms astrophysicists use for certain types of energy and matter in their models of the universe, and not any kind of superstitious mumbo-jumbo. We're talking about the 'terrain' of nearby space and the life cycle of the thing that usually protects us by consuming - that's not a metaphor, Yggdrasil literally eats spaceships - anybody trying to enter the so-called 'Nine Realms' without a very knowledgeable guide in a small ship or very good timing and a heap of luck. This oncoming vulnerability is why we're suddenly seeing aliens so often, and why we usually don't see any at all. Despite the geo-centric ideas that being at the center of the Convergence gave our ancestors, that just means we are near the center of the 'trunk' of the creature we're all living inside, so we get the worst of the storm. It's a bit more complicated because we're dealing with something that exists in more than the number of dimensions we usually deal with. We're not easy to visit for the other races living inside the Nine Realms due to the preference for using high-tech anchored portals instead of ships within Yggdrasil and even if anybody outside Yggdrasil did know a way in, they would probably go somewhere with a more welcoming space station. The ISS doesn't have a decent burger joint or a motel 6, so we've basically got a 'no vacancy' sign up. Asgard has always paid us more attention than the others because technically we're inside their borders. Think of it this way: Earth is to Asgard the way San Marino or the Vatican is to Italy, or Lesotho is to South Africa. Now, because of how the nebula is thinning right now, there will be a viable path into the Nine Realms that basically will dump anybody bold enough to try it onto our doorstep. Since this time around we're advanced enough to understand what's going on instead of assuming an angel or demon is giving us a prophecy about the end of the world, the plan is to give us a leg up and help us defend ourselves.

"If some warlord got a foothold here on Earth they could hold the door open to let in fleets of ships and frankly, Yggdrasil is not very densely populated. Earth actually has one of the highest populations of any single solar system, second only to Alfheim - the home system of the Fae Conglomerate. I'm told their version of the UN is selecting a delegation to come meet with us as well, but have just finished with a bit of a dust-up over secession rights for one of their monarchies so they probably won't get around to talking to us directly until the first quarter of the next year. The other realms will probably send their own people around the same time. There is a lot of old political rivalries between them so there will be quite a bit of pageantry when they arrive that isn't necessarily going to be for our benefit, but it seems that aside from making a display of how cool they are to the new kid on the block everyone is ready to put that mess aside for the time being. There are several galactic empires out there that outnumber Yggdrasil's total population ten to one and could easily just set up an outpost on Mars or even Pluto to pour all their forces in here and take us all over, and our neighbors don't want that to happen. If you're a Star Trek fan, this is the part where the Vulcans land in Montana, except we've already got incoming and have to get our house in order yesterday. We all have a common enemy to unite against, so let's get to it." Rhodes leaned back with a stern look directly into the camera. Loki leaned slightly forward to speak into his own microphone dressed in some complicated layered linen outfit. The breast was almost covered with bright ribbons and shining medals. Thor and what Steve assumed were a couple other Asgardians were similarly covered in ribbons and medals and others, standing in a line behind them like guards, were in the sort of fancy armor Thor had shown them once at a black-tie charity event Tony had forced them all to attend.

"While the All-speech is wonderful for diplomacy and the sharing of stories it is not always precise in the translations of technical terms and makes sharing knowledge with people who have very different systems for understanding the universe difficult. I believe I have learned enough of present-day English and German to make myself clear:" Loki took a breath, and when he next spoke his words were much more heavily accented, his voice rolling over the consonants and forming the vowels in a way that still sounded mostly British to Steve, but also reminded him a bit of Danish in a way he couldn't quite pin down. "I thank you all for the chance to speak on these issues publicly and for listening. I know that you have no obligation to let me do so, and would likely prefer to hear my brother, King Thor, explain the situation we are all in. For those who worship Yggdrasil as I was raised to do, publicly stating honest regret that one has caused harm and the intention to make amends is important and the allowance for our religious practices by the United Nations Accords Council is appreciated not only by myself but by my people. While the myths your people have heard about us are essentially the most hilarious and outlandish tabloids, Sleipnir is just a very fine horse bred on my estate for example, one of the things about me that is true is that I tend to get involved in a fair amount of court drama. The thing that has caused the greatest stir in the Asgardian Court is that I hold this particular tenant of our faith sacrosanct and have never once apologized for anything if I did not intend to follow through on making amends - and I hold others to the same high standard. The incident with Lady Sif's hair comes to mind. I believe my brother has already told the truth of that tale on camera and the video is quite popular, though I think he failed to mention that Sif and I were the equivalent of six-year-old humans at the time."

"I would like to apologize for my part in the events of the invasion of New York, including the incident in Germany and the loss of the research facility where the Tesseract was being experimented on. The primary threat to your realm is the same as it was during the invasion, and it is that same threat that ultimately caused the Ultron incident in Sokovia. I want to make it clear that for everyone who encountered the Mind Spear, there was some detrimental mental effect that should be accounted for. It affected my actions, it obviously affected those who were enthralled during the invasion, and it affected anyone who touched it for any reason from the moment it was forged in Sanctuary until its destruction during the events surrounding the tragedy in Sokovia. The Mind Spear did this because it was specifically designed to do so. This was its primary purpose, to induce someone to open a way into Yggdrasil so that its creator and their army could enter and to exterminate us if we did not comply with the programmed standards or put up too much resistance. The person who commissioned the spear, a warlord named Thanos, had it programmed so that it would drive anyone in contact with it to achieve these goals. Be it obviously and bluntly as it was when it stripped people completely of their free will as Agent Barton and many others experienced, or more insidiously as when it compelled Dr. Stark and Dr. Banner to connect it to a fledgling Artificial Intelligence despite their better judgment, allowing the simpler program to infect that nascent masterwork like a virus and create the entity known as Ultron. No doubt it also influenced Ms. Maximoff when she absorbed some of its power into herself as well."

"How convenient," Sam said as Loki repeated his apology in German. "He can just say it was all the Mind Stone's doing and get a free pass."

"It is possible," Nat said. "Loki's tactics were hard to predict partially because they didn't make a lot of sense, even in hindsight we couldn't understand his choices. We assumed he was simply insane and therefore all the flaws in his plan were simply because he couldn't do any better, but he is much more articulate now and is obviously in much better physical health than he was even before we fought him. I'm not sure if it is just the video quality, but his eyes are an unnaturally brilliant shade of green. They were blue before. Not the same shade that Clint's were, but there wasn't a hint of green. Now they match his clothing. There were a few betting pools back at SHIELD for when Thor would come back to tell us who it was that gave his brother an army in the first place. I'm not sure anyone put money on it taking this long, though."

"I… I don't," Clint started to say but cut himself off. "I wasn't completely out of it. I could make choices. I just always did what was best for the mission. That was the worst fucking part of it. I thought I could maybe do something small, something inefficient or loud, but then I told him about Laura and the farm and I was just… The look on his face, the way he said it. When I told him that I loved my kids, when he made me tell him about them - details - I still have nightmares about how he just… he threw the bottle of juice he was drinking and told me I'd better do exactly what he told me."

"That's fucked up, man," Scott said.

"That's the thing, Scott. It wasn't fucked up the way it should have been. He didn't sound like he was threatening me. Thor says the myths are bullshit, but some of them obviously have some truth to them. Loki's a father several times in them and his kids are all dead or worse. Thor always changed the subject whenever I tried to ask him about it instead of just saying it was bullshit, so who knows? Loki told me to do what I was told and be useful and my family would be fine, but I was already brainwashed and hadn't even tried to disobey yet. So, I… I just don't know."

"I look forward to working with experts who will appreciate more detailed descriptions and an exchange of knowledge, but for the time being I shall revert to my native speech." Loki switching back from German pulled all their attention back to the screen. "We had other plans for how to organize this, but when the news reached us that the protectors of this realm have turned on each other Odin Allfather knew action needed to be taken immediately. It is truly terrible timing. Since our mother's passing his own health has been in decline. Many responsibilities of the crown had already been on my shoulders for some time while Thor was here working with your Avengers or looking for information on the progress of the Thanos and his Black Order. My brother Thor has since taken the crown so that we are not attempting a transfer of power mid-invasion, essentially swapping our positions as the Allfather steps back into an advisory role in his retirement."

"I would say, brother, that it is more that I send you to do what you do best," Thor corrected. "You have always been better at the work that comes before the fighting begins and there is little chance our archives hold any information on Thanos or the history of his race that you have not already compiled." Loki's stoic face briefly twitched into a smile. "This Civil War is a most troubling affair, and I have confidence that some of the issues can be settled using your talents and knowledge."

"As my King has implied, I will be working with more than just Midgard to ensure Yggdrasil is not successfully invaded by Thanos as penance for unwillingly aiding him in his last attempt, but because my trespass was against your realm, I will be prioritizing the effort to bring your realm up to the necessary standard. As we have done for ourselves, you must also settle any matters that may leave this realm vulnerable and stand united with one another if you have any hope of standing against what is coming and prevailing. It is not only that Thanos is coming, but that you will be forced onto the galactic stage and many others will be watching for vulnerabilities from realms both inside and outside Yggdrasil's borders. If I may voice my opinions on the matter as an outside observer with expertise in a related field of study, and someone whose only ulterior motive to strengthening your realm is the desire that my own home doesn't get burnt to the ground once the invaders use you as a base of operations: The Winter Soldier who has recently been in your news was brainwashed and turned into a weapon for others to use via more brutal means, but his situation was essentially no different than my own. He killed many people because this Hydra turned him into a weapon. Of course, it isn't his fault." If anyone had asked Steve, he would have told them without hesitation that that was all he'd wanted the public to realize. Bucky and Wanda weren't at fault for their actions, it was all out of their hands because of Hydra. If told that it would be Loki making this proclamation at a press conference alongside half the Avengers and several intergalactic diplomats Steve he'd probably have asked if the person was feeling alright and ushered them to a doctor as quickly as possible. Yet that was what they were watching.

"Dr. Stark tells me that Agent Barton's wife has had to flee their farm and enter protective custody with their children due to backlash from the community once his address was mined from the SHIELD data dump, and that is both a gross miscarriage of justice and an example of the sort of divided purpose your realm can not afford to perpetuate. The Spear was used on me for months before I was tasked with facilitating the invasion of your planet, and so I know from personal experience, as does Agent Barton, that mind control is a terrible and terrifying thing that causes lasting pain long after the controlling influence is gone. The actions of one under the control of another - through magical means, torture, systematic gas-lighting or otherwise - are not their fault in entirety. Agent Barton no doubt felt kinship with this brainwashed Winter Soldier due to being controlled by the Spear. I would conclude that his choice to fight on the side of the Rogues was not as simple as some suggest. One cannot simply tell oneself that their fears and phobias are irrational and become instantly cured of them. Knowing that a trauma has left you with a trigger that can be manipulated does not protect you from having those levers pulled, it only helps you recognize when it has happened and take mitigating steps after the fact." Steve looked over at Barton. The archer was frowning at the screen but seemed to have calmed down considerably. Steve nudged him, and when the smaller man turned to him his eyes were haunted. The brief pause in Loki's speech ended and they both turned toward the screen again.

"It is fair to say I was not the root cause of the destruction and suffering of the invasion in your year 2012; and yet even though it was not my will or choice to attack your world, the actions of my hands caused great harm to a great many people. By default, I use the morality of my own culture to quantify the damage done when I asses my own culpability: If I add up the remaining life expectancy of all those killed in the invasion, there are six thousand years of lost potential by my hand. A hefty debt when one considers your brief lifespans. While the bulk of that debt must be laid at the feet of the monstrous creature that programmed the Mind Spear, that doesn't completely absolve me of my obligation to see that those harmed are compensated. To that end, I have already shared all I know of Thanos, who I have no doubt is still a threat to this world and will use the coming opportunity to push his forces into our space soon after the path is clear, with the UN and your military leaders. I have been asked to help, and am honestly quite eager to begin, with your world's understanding of dark energy, dark matter, and psychic resonance - the most assessable forces that have been lumped together and called magic by your people in the past. The ways they may be used in the coming battle will be priority, but there are many other applications that they can be applied to and while your lives are short your race is gifted with a blindingly quick ability to assimilate information and put it to creative use that I look forward to seeing in action. As for more physical defenses, I am well-versed in numerous ship designs and understand several forms of propulsion. The wider universe knows me as Loki Skywalker, a name given to me as a master way-finder, though I realize that name has quite a different meaning here." Loki's face melted into a beatific smile and he winked at the camera. "I doubt the UN will be asking me to train anyone in the ways of my religion, though I do actually own a few antique laser swords I'd be willing to share the designs for. More seriously, navigation among the stars is not simply pointing your ship at a star and moving forward until you arrive. There are many things in the darkness of the void between stars that your people have not yet learned to detect with scientific instruments. Way-finding is knowing what areas are monitored by hostile factions, which parts of space are folded to facilitate faster than light travel, and which parts are home to extra-dimensional entities like Yggdrasil that will happily consume anything that gets too close to them. Your eyesight seems quite limited, so I do not know how much I can aid your realm on that account."

"Brother, that is unfair."

"Oh my god! The Jedi were real." Scott spoke over the broadcast like he'd just had a religious experience. Steve knew vaguely that there was a series of movies about Jedi and that some people where a bit fanatical about them, and it had been on his list for a long while now, but he'd been warned that the first few movies weren't very good and hadn't gotten around to them. Tony was looking at Loki like he wanted to get the promised schematics right that second so he could go make a laser sword for himself before the day was out. "Sam, Jedi are real!"

"They can barely see violet," Loki huffed.

"I've wanted a lightsaber since I was five," Sam said.

"Their eyes aren't any worse than the average Aesir, it is just that as a changeling you see twice as many colors as we do," Thor said quietly. Loki waved that off like it was irrelevant.

"Same," Clint chimed in.

"Quiet!" Nat snapped.

"We will also share with your people the techniques related to the defense against those who would utilize mental manipulation, giving you some means to aid your fellows should an infiltration of your world happen in a similar way again. Due a series of attempted coups by the Sorceress Loralie during your 1920's, 30's and 40's, I spent some time researching the despicable and utterly disgusting methods of those who use mind magics and more specifically how to deal with the aftermath of such a violation of one's agency. While that did not help me resist the effects of the Spear long term, it did allow me to retain enough agency to botch the invasion by selecting the most eye-catching, telegraphed, and inefficient plans. While I have mastered several fields of study…" Loki gestured to the gaudy embellishments pinned to his clothes as he said this and Steve realized that they weren't just military medals but probably something like diplomas. Thor had quite a few pinned to him, which seemed odd to Steve since he didn't seem like an egghead like Tony or Bruce. "…my qualifications in the field of healing ends at battlefield aid. Qualified Mind Healers from my mother's homeworld have been selected to speak with Midgardian doctors about the mechanics of how powers such as those used by Kilgrave or the Scarlet Witch work and how they can be counteracted. This would mostly be types of treatments applied after the fact, as most types of prevention are highly invasive and difficult to sustain, that would also aid those harmed by less dramatic means. Battered spouses, victims of atrocities against children, and soldiers haunted by their battles could be aided by Vanir knowledge of how to recover mentally from such traumas."

Steve heard Wanda gasp, but Loki was still talking and they needed to know what he was planning. Sure, making him do this press conference was some kind of penance, but it gave him a lot of power to mess with Earth by controlling what was said. In fact, it sounded to Steve like he was going to enable Tony and other scientists to mess with things best left alone.

"I will not say that we have the ability to de-program the Winter Soldier's triggers because giving such an evaluation without having met the man is irresponsible, but I will say that it is impossible to heal from such things on one's own. Just as Thor required aid over a couple months to put it behind him after he was enthralled by Lorelei for a few weeks, just as I was treated over the last couple of years to fully discard the false memories and compulsions placed in my mind by the Spear, so too will anyone in similar situation need to be pulled from the traps such violation builds in one's mind. I wish to be perfectly, completely clear in my conviction that it is completely impossible to influence the mind of another and alter their will without causing lasting damage. To anyone who touched or was in the same room with the Spear - no matter how briefly, no matter the reason - I implore you to seek aid. Such things untreated only grow worse over time. Had my mother, who now dines in Valhalla, not sent healers to me during my imprisonment in defiance of my sentence of solitary confinement, I would not be sane and whole today. Even with the Spear in a different realm entirely, its influence on my mind only grew while I was left alone during that first month. Symptoms of those whose minds have been touched include irrational bursts of negative emotion especially anger and paranoia, compulsive rationalization of one's actions or events around them even when such events are obviously mere chance or coincidence, a need to be always in control of every situation, sudden changes in preference, withdrawal from friends and family, general depression or anxiety, and an inability to admit fault or weakness even for trivial things." Rhodes leaned back into his microphone and waited for Loki to finish his last sentence before speaking. With the camera angle currently centered on the Asgardians the shift in his posture made it obvious that he was in a wheelchair. The sight of it makes Sam hiss.

"The Accords Council and the Avengers would like to endorse that warning about contact with the Spear, and also extend it to anyone who has been in the company of Wanda Maximoff." Wanda screeched in indignation at the horrible slander Rhodes was committing. "Brain scans of several Avengers compound staff have shown the same neurological disturbance as the people forcibly evacuated from Novi Grad, Sokovia. Psychological and neurological specialists can be expensive, and the Maria Stark Foundation is willing to assist those who lack the means to get themselves checked out. We don't know yet if this was a deliberate attack on compound staff, Steve Rogers was always very quick to say that Ms. Maximoff was still learning control, so it is possible she is doing this unknowingly." The room filled with noise as the press, vultures that they were, were unable to keep quiet and started talking over Rhodes.

"Wanda, even Rhodes admits he knows you weren't trying to hurt anyone," Steve said, stepping toward the upset girl. "You heard that, right? It isn't your fault."

"That would be a most unfortunate situation," Loki spoke over the rabble of journalists and the room quieted to hear his 'expert' opinion. "Willful disregard for the rights of others or true malice would be much better for all involved than an unknowing trespass. If the assaults on their minds was deliberate, then there is reason to be argued against and satisfaction for the victims to be gained through penance or redemption of some kind. If these assaults are simply what she does to those around her the way your body warms a room, then there is no recourse that is not brutal and permanent."

"She struggles with control of her abilities, but it is a lack of training," Vision spoke up in Wanda's defense. The journalists buzzed with questions.

"You make a good point," Thor said, pointing at one of the journalists in the front row. "She is in her late twenties. That is a fully developed adult by any measure in this realm, is it not? Adults should answer for what they have done, even if the trespass was accidental."

"Yes of course," Vision said, "but she has only had the powers for a couple years. I am sure she would have apologized if she realized what she had done." Loki made a noise of disgust.

"Are you suggesting that the so-called Rogue Avengers have all had their minds tampered with due to living in proximity to the Scarlet Witch for an extended time?" Loki asked.

"No, no, Wanda would never have done something like that."

"Then she also has enough control to avoid assaulting her servants and the craftsmen she patrons unknowingly, and either chose not to control herself or deliberately used her power on them for some reason."

"We are called support staff, not servants" Hill corrected quietly. Loki didn't even turn to look at her, keeping his expectant gaze on Vision.

"I… suppose so, but I still do not think she would assault the compound staff on purpose."

"I understand you are quite young yourself, but I have studied - and taught - several types of magic at the Mage's College on Vanaheim. Admittedly I have not met someone who gained magical abilities in the way she did, but there are some universal rules that apply. This is incredibly alarming and anyone with a single day of formal magical training would not stand for it." The other Asgardians nodded in agreement at that. "Ms. Maximoff has had these powers for long enough that at a minimum and even without training or practice she should know when she is using them and when she is not even if she cannot stop herself. If these assaults were not intentional then she either chose not to inform others when she has touched their minds accidentally for some reason, or else she lacks awareness of her powers to such an extent that gaining full control will never be possible. There have been a few students like that at the College, and their abilities are humanely blocked or limited for the safety of those around them and in many cases also for their own safety. I remember well one young student of mine who had an affinity for fire that caused her to set anything flammable within her rooms alight while she was dreaming, including her own clothing and hair. She was provided bracelets that completely blocked her magic which she could put on and take off as needed and for legal purposes taking the bracelets off would be considered the same as drawing a weapon. Now, it is also possible that this is simply the lingering influence of the Spear causing her control to slip despite her best efforts, a possibility with several alarming implications of its own. In that case it can be treated, but to allow her to repeatedly cause collateral damage and excuse it without consequence as something out of her control the way that Captain Rogers did is not sustainable. One doesn't fault a plant for having protective oils on its leaves, that is its nature and cannot be changed, but one does not tolerate it to spread freely within their garden and cause harm either."

"The Rogues do deserve some consequences for the harm they caused, but I still believe they were acting with the best intentions," Vision said, a note of finality in his voice.

"I believed I had good intentions when I led the invasion of this planet."

The uproar after that statement took some time to die down, not only among the press but also among Steve's team. When it became clear that the angry shouting would not die down on its own Thor stood up and lived up to his title, the sudden clap of thunder startling everyone else into silence.

"Loki was incarcerated in the dungeon during his treatment because until the influence was removed from his mind, he could not be trusted to attend his regular duties or even to reside in his own chambers without harming others. During the invasion and until the false memories were removed, he fully believed that he was acting in the best interests of the wider universe. Thanos himself is the source of this belief - belief that the universe has become overpopulated and this is the source of all suffering. Since resources are limited, there is suffering from poverty and war over those resources. The best solution to achieve permanent peace throughout the whole of the universe by his measure is to cull half of the total population of the universe. If a planet objects to this or doesn't have enough merit according to his standards, he obliterates them entirely. More for the rest of us, so that all remaining people can live in a time of plenty and want for nothing. It is a twisted and flawed cult of death filled with true believers both born with twisted minds and those who have been altered or forced into compliance. He sees himself as a savior, and all who call him a villain are not enlightened enough to deserve the paradise of plenty he believes he is creating." Thor sat down and gestured for Loki to continue.

"With that utter nonsense implanted into my mind, what might I have done when sent to the Temples to perform my duties as God of Mischief, Patron of Children? Would I entertain the fatherless children who reside there as I usually do in between seeing to the administration of their care and upkeep, or would I upon reviewing the budget for the coming winter perform some atrocity so that the ones with the most merit have plenty of food to eat? Would I murder the eldest Priests and Priestesses since they have had their time, or perhaps the least productive, or perhaps the greedy, and then distribute their wealth to those more deserving? No, having good intentions does not excuse any act of harm upon another. It was right for me to be put in chains until I was recovered."

"Are you fully recovered?" Someone shouted from the audience.

"My brother is in good health," Thor answered.

"That is not fully accurate. I believe the term in your language is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for what remains of my recovery, and that is a long road that many never reach the end of no matter how long they may live," Loki said quickly. "There is no lingering energy within my person to perpetuate the compulsions, the false memories have been removed, and I have likely recovered all of the suppressed memories that I ever will. There are memories, joyful days from my childhood that I have seen images of or read about in my journals, that are lost to me forever. I am as well as I can be and will dedicate myself to sharing knowledge of magic with your realm and defending it from Thanos as penance for my trespasses here. This is why I want to stress so much that Magic is not the miraculous thing your myths portray it as - while sometimes there is a way to quickly fix things that your people have not yet discovered, that is not always the case. Mages can snuff out a magically fueled fire with a gesture, but that doesn't restore what has already been cooked or burned nor stop any natural fires that spawned from the heat and dry air. There is always cost or consequence to any action. Some spells create fallout not unlike your atomic weapons would. In short magic is not simple, free, or a universal solution."

"A Prince was a teacher? Is it normal for members of your nobility to have normal jobs outside their responsibilities as rulers?" a journalist with a thick accent asked. One of the Aesir women, Steve thought her name was Air, answered the question.

"It is not a second occupation. In order to earn an official mastery of a field of study, there is a requirement to mentor or teach at a recognized institution. Prince Loki has not ever chosen the half-year of mentoring, but instead he taught at the College of Vanaheim for most of his masteries and took a few official apprentices when his duties to the realm prevented him from continuing. I believe King Thor always chose to mentor a student to satisfy this requirement for his own studies. For most this is something that happens during adolescence, though Prince Loki has made a life-long hobby of collecting knowledge."

"How long does your species live?" one of the journalists asked.

"Asgardians can live for roughly six-thousand years," Thor said.

"The average lifespan for an Asgardian, discounting death in battle which has never been included in the official statistics, is forty-five centuries. The luckiest can reach sixty. Thor is trying not to think about the Allfather's current age of fifty-two. Barring accident or war Jotnar like myself can expect to live for eighty centuries, but the current average life expectancy is only about forty-one mostly due to poor living conditions that have not improved in my lifetime since my birth mother was a terrible King," Loki added. "While the abundance of my childhood should have put me on the more fortunate end of that scale, I have had a series of near-death experiences including being poisoned by a Kursed Svartalf and left behind on an open plain during a sandstorm that make me wonder if I will make it to eleven."

"I have apologized for leaving you," Thor grumbled.

"And not yet done anything to make amends." Loki replied with a brittle smile.

"I haven't had the chance! If Mother's healers had seen fit to tell me you recovered from that deathlike paralysis instead of spiriting you away to the countryside and letting us all think you were dead…"

"Now is neither the time nor the place for this argument, brother."

"That was good," Nat said. "I didn't know Thor had it in him."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked. The next question asked seemed just as irrelevant as the last, so Steve tuned it out.

"Loki said at the beginning that he is a stickler for proper apologies according to their religion, saying that unless the person does something to atone for whatever they are apologizing for it doesn't count. Most people would dismiss that as just a lot of lip service. Plenty of people talk a lot about religion and don't mean a word of it when they are trying to appear reformed. That little exchange backed him up, with a mistake Thor made and apologized for not being forgiven because Thor has not yet done anything to make up for the original offense. It demonstrates the concept and illustrates that Loki finds an apology that consists only of words to be completely empty and meaningless, implying that he really will help us against this Thanos to the best of his ability so that his own apology isn't empty and meaningless."

"Yeah, sorry Nat, but I'm buying it," Clint said. "Thor isn't a good lier. Even if that was staged, it was genuine. Thor really did leave Loki behind on a battlefield because he thought he was dead, he told us about it before, and I think his reactions just then were all real. Loki's a spiteful prick using a part of their religion to be a righteous spiteful prick, and he expects Thor to grovel a little before he forgives him. It all matches up with everything else Thor has told us about his brother from before he went bananas. It looks like their shrinks actually can fix crazy, but they can't fix asshole."

"Careful there Clint. It's also Jewish," Sam said.

"What?" Scott asked.

"I got all sorts when I worked for the VA. I'm not clear on all the details, but in the Jewish religion you don't just pray or go to confession for forgiveness, you have to show the person you wronged or your community that you won't do it again with your actions and make it clear that you know that you shouldn't have done it in the first place. A real proper apology and then to live by the new standard you set yourself when you apologized. God doesn't forgive you, the person you hurt does. Also, the person you wronged doesn't have to forget about it you even if you put the work in and they forgave you, it's just that the rest of the community isn't supposed to hold it against you anymore. Oh, and the dead can't forgive, so if you got somebody killed you just… have to live with it I guess. I wasn't really sure how to handle that one when it came up and one of the other counselors took over for me. It's really different than the 'you messed up, so go to confession and tell a priest about it and then pray about whatever verse they give you' that I grew up with, and it changes how people react to some of the things we go through in group. Makes the whole situation we have with Stark seem so much harder for us to overcome."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Well, it's not like I ever asked Tony about his religion, but Howard Stark was Jewish wasn't he? I read about it in a book about his part in World War Two. I, uh, wanted to understand you a bit better when you talked about your friends from back then. Howard Stark was born in New York city to German Jewish immigrants, and then Edwin Jarvis forfeited his commission as a British Officer when he went against orders to get his Jewish sweetheart out of Hungary before the Nazi's could ship her off to a concentration camp. I don't know if he was Jewish from the start or not, but if he wasn't he probably converted when he married the girl from the way they presented it. Howard Stark took them before the Brits could toss Edwin in jail for forging his commanding officer's signature on some transit papers and got them into America by giving Edwin and Ana jobs as his butler and maid, I think. Not that much different than how we brought Wanda in to keep her out of Sokovia since they were all ruffled about how she helped with the evacuation. Um, though Maria Carbonell was a Catholic, but the Jarvis's practically raised Tony since Howard and his wife were busy with running S.I., SHIELD and that charity foundation named after Tony's mom. So… He was probably raised with a lot of Jewish values even if his mom baptized him Catholic and he'll be expecting us to do something to make up for the things that went wrong on our side the same way he makes up for his mistakes by making things for people." Steve blinked at Sam. He didn't know half of that, hadn't really thought much about whatever crazy dame managed to finally tie Howard down. He did vaguely remember Howard saying something about needing to introduce Peggy to his butler. A running joke he'd never really gotten. There was something about women's equality and feisty redheads one time, and something else about a work visa and idiotic red tape Howard had been complaining about. Howard tended to ramble and a lot of what he said was too technical for Steve to understand so he tended to tune out when Howard was just filling the silence, usually he'd sketch something or go over the maps while Howard got the technical things ready before Colonel Phillips came in to start a meeting. He paid enough attention to answer basic questions or give an opinion if it wasn't too far beyond him, but he didn't retain it the way he did the debriefs. Howard would often thank him for not telling him to stop talking his ear off or for the realistic drawings of his inventions and used them for his records. Steve supposed it wasn't a close friendship, but they did work well together.

"What do we have to make up for? We did nothing wrong," Wanda shouted.

"Rhodes is in a wheelchair, for one thing," Scott answered when Sam floundered, "and I honestly wish I knew about the collapsed tunnel and had read the Accords before you guys called me because maybe I'd have been a little more careful if I knew what was going on. It's a miracle I didn't kill anybody with that fuel truck, but you can't think very clearly when in giant mode. We were trying to do the right thing, sure, but it got out of control and more people got hurt than were helped. I've been through this before, when my old bosses were embezzling money and I wanted to expose them for the thieves they were. I did it wrong, because I wanted to be a hero like Robin Hood instead of just calling the FBI, and now we're in the same bad spot because we didn't stop and get all the facts before going off the rails."

"We did not go off the rails," Steve said. "They forced our hand."

"Yeah, that's… But Iron Man tried to talk to us before the fight and you just wound him up instead of explaining or asking for his help. We had to do what we did because it was the only option, but did we even look for other options? I mean, I know we haven't talked about it as a group, but when you look back hindsight is 20/20 right? You can see all the times you could have done something else but chose the wrong thing, and maybe you couldn't have chosen the right thing because you didn't have all the information you do now but that doesn't mean it wasn't still the wrong thing. Like the fake kill-on-sight order for Barnes, you didn't know it wasn't real and I'm not sure you could have, but you hurt a lot of civilians when you attacked the police."

"What do you mean fake?" Sam demanded before Steve could finish processing what Scott was saying.

"If they actually had a kill on sight order they would have killed Barnes instead of taking him into custody after the tunnel collapse so obviously whoever told you about that lied," Scott said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and it really was when you put it like that. "The rest of the Avengers weren't trying to kill us at the airport either. I mean, Iron Man and War Machine could have just hit us with a bunch of missiles or the big lasers - you know the ones they use to cut through metal or stone during search and rescue or to get into a building - and put us all down under a minute."

"They were pulling their punches," Clint agreed. "I thought we were too, that we'd fight until somebody took a knee and then sit down and talk after putting on a big enough show, but then Ross threw us all in the RAFT."

"Stark put us in the RAFT. Stark put that collar on me," Wanda seethed, bright anger shining in her eyes.

"It's alright Wanda, we won't let that happen again." Steve said.

"That's not what happened, we were…" Scott started to say something, but reached up to rub at his head.

"It is all Stark's fault. He wants to control us, to cage us and make us…" Wanda's sobs cut off with a screech. Nat stood behind her with a wild look in her eyes, her widow bites still sparking after using them to put Wanda down.

"Nat! What the hell?" Steve shouted, rushing to check that Wanda was just unconscious. A steady pulse indicated she was only stunned.

"She was doing it again. With her eyes scrunched up and her hands buried in her pockets or her head down hiding behind her hair like she was just doing, not actually crying but pretending to sob to distract us from looking at the person she was targeting without letting us see the glow in her eyes. "

"You didn't have to attack her, she's just a kid," Steve said, disappointed that Nat let Loki get to her like this.

"Do you hear yourself, Steve? She's just turned twenty-seven. She is not a child, and it is sexist and patronizing for you to keep talking about her like she is one. Are you a patronizing, sexist person? Do you treat any other grown woman like a child?"

"I, well, that isn't what I meant."

"Still harsh of you to just attack her, isn't it?" Sam asked.

"They have evidence. The staff came forward to complain after she left the compound, said they were too afraid of her to do it when she still lived there but were shocked into action by her attack on Vision, but some of them said that reporting her before was unthinkable. Most didn't come forward until she was in the RAFT with her powers blocked, which is more than a bit suspicious. She's probably been using her powers on us before now, too. I hacked into the compound servers not long after I joined you here and saw the complaints. Then I forgot about them until just now when they were brought up by the press conference. Why would I just forget about them? Even if I didn't end up confronting her, I still should have thought about talking to the rest of you about it for more than five seconds."

"She wouldn't do that," Steve said, arms crossed and back straight. Nat was being paranoid and ridiculous.

"She was just using her powers on Scott to make him stop contradicting her narrative of blaming Stark for everything under the sun. This wasn't an accident, not with how she quickly hid her face and hands under her hair. I've noticed that when Scott uses his suit he acts a bit different for a day or so, that's part of why I've been asking him to train together so often even though the suit's resources are limited. I think something about the suit can shake off whatever her powers have done to us, similar to how the Arc Reactor could protect Tony from Loki, but I think she didn't have much reason to do anything really big to him so it was hard to tell. I've been using his periods of clarity to give him as much information as possible and push for his opinions to check my own logic for bias. I think that for the weaker things, the stuff she can do that doesn't make her whole arms glow red, maybe we can shake it off with enough direct evidence. Like how I can remember reading the reports now and deciding to talk to Clint about the possibility that Wanda is messing with our heads accidentally. You all know that at minimum, Clint deserved to know about the accusations."

"Stark didn't put us in the RAFT, Stark didn't write the Accords, Stark isn't who would arrest us if we got caught!" Scott shouted as loud as he could, then slumped against the wall with a satisfied sigh. "Oh my god I've wanted to say that for weeks."

"What?" Sam asked, and Steve felt frozen. It was ridiculous nonsense, of course it was Tony pulling the strings behind the scenes, but at the same time he couldn't come up with anything specific to say against Nat or Scott. Scott continued talking.

"Ross put us in the RAFT illegally when he was supposed to turn us over to the international counter-terrorism people, but we were arrested in the first place because we broke some laws. The bombing of the UN thing was their jurisdiction and that is what started the whole thing, so we were supposed to go to them first and then explain things and get a pass or get lawyers to fight it all out in court, but Ross was an asshole on a power trip and now he's an asshole up on charges of abuse of power. The Accords aren't 'Stark's Accords' like you guys keep saying. They've been in the works since the attack on New York because that nuke somebody launched at a city full of civilians would have killed everything in its path from New Jersey to Connecticut. He did a lot of work to make sure they didn't end up looking like something George Orwell could have dreamed up, and was still trying to get rid of the ankle bracelets or at least make them a punishment instead of the norm, but he was only one guy in a swarm of people pushing for this to happen."

"Tony said that if we did not do this now, it would be done to us but worse," Nat reminded them. "He wasn't wrong. Legislation is currently in the works inspired by our actions that would mean registration for anyone with extraordinary abilities, with all sorts of Draconian crap thrown in. So far there is enough push back over stepping on people's civil rights to stop it being passed, but the families of those injured or killed during this fiasco are pushing hard for something to be done. The longer we all stay here with our heads in the sand pretending we did nothing wrong the worse it will be."

"So, we're fucked because little miss magic over there has been fucking with everyone she looks at, most importantly ramming it into our heads that we are too perfect to make mistakes and that this is all Stark's fault?" Clint asked, glaring at Wanda.

"This is so messed up." Sam said, slumping down into a chair. "I don't… but I can't trust what I think can I? We need somebody else, somebody she hasn't messed with."

"Then we'll ask for help, see if the doctors here can do something about it, or even just check to see if it is true or not," Scott suggested. "They probably already have a bunch of stuff ready since they are looking for ways to help Barnes, right? Heck, maybe looking at Wanda's powers can help them figure out how to fix Barnes too."

"It isn't her fault," Steve finally found his voice. "They said she absorbed the thing in Loki's Spear - or Thanos' Spear, I guess. The thing that helped Tony make Ultron. She is just a mixed-up kid trying to do what is right and making mistakes - no, Nat, she is a kid. I don't care about her age; she isn't mature enough to be on her own. She hasn't had the chance to grow up. This is… the thing in the spear was evil. That is what did this."

"What did this was you when you couldn't man up and tell Stark the truth because you needed his money," Nat said. "None of this - none of it - would have happened if you trusted that Tony was smart enough to get over it and help you instead of cutting off his money."

"Get over what?" Scott asked. Steve tried to say it didn't matter now but Nat talked right over him.

"Bucky murdered Stark's parents, it was covered up as a car crash. Stark has been blaming himself for it this whole time, thinking he made his father angry enough to drive drunk. That's why he punched Steve in Siberia - he didn't just show up and start swinging the way Steve made it sound."

"It wasn't like that! He was completely irrational!" Steve shouted.

"Because he watched a video of his parents being murdered while the guy who did it and the guy who used his money to cover it up stood right next to him. Yeah, Steve, there isn't anyone on the planet who wouldn't have taken a swing at you in that situation," Nat said, standing in a pose Steve knew from training with her meant she would flip him on his back if he moved any closer. "You promised me you had taken care of it. I told you that I would if you didn't want to, and you said you had already done it."

"I fixed it so he wouldn't ever have to know. It would only have hurt Tony to find out."

"It was already hurting him, Steve, and he was always going to find out eventually," Nat said slowly as if speaking to a child. "He still blamed himself. Don't you remember the BARF demonstration? Or did you ignore anything other than the idea that it could help Bucky?"

"Guys! Guys!" Scot shouted over them. "Our brains are all messed up right now so why don't we take care of that and then come back to… well… to the idea that Captain America covered up a murder for HYDRA using the victim's own money. Because I've got enough shit blowing my mind right now that I don't really think I can deal with that too without having an aneurysm."

"I didn't do anything for HYDRA!" Steve shouted back.

"Yes, you did Steve." Nat and Scott said at the same time. Nat continued, speaking gently. "You were trying to help Bucky, we all know that was your goal, but you helped HYDRA in the process whether you meant to or not. There isn't a statute of limitations for murder or accessory after the fact, and even if Stark doesn't want to bring charges it is out of his hands. The victim's family doesn't get a say one way or the other if those sorts of charges get brought or not no matter how much influence they have, not when it was all this public. The DA in New York was never much of a fan of yours, he's always emphasized how glad he is that Iron Man moved back to his state, and how much S.I. helps the local economy. He did have a whole thing about "the smartest and the best are born in NYC" and is all about youth outreach and reforming criminals, so we might get away with a lifetime of community service for that. That's the angle I'm going to take when we go back, with being an Avenger the service I provide."

"We just have to wait a little longer for this to blow over," Steve argued, shaking his head at her pessimism. "They need us now, because of this Thanos person. We can come back with an agreement to just move forward and handle this threat."

"And after?" Nat asks. "You read this wrong, Steve, the Accords are here to stay one way or another. With proof of what Wanda has been doing to us there is a possibility we can come out better than I thought we would before, but even then, this won't just be forgotten. We need to figure out our next move."

"Perhaps for your next move you all should go back to your rooms while we secure Miss Maximoff," a new voice cut in. Steve turned to see a dozen of the female warriors that guarded the palace pour into the room.

"Sounds great to me," Scott said. "Could you keep her sedated or something? That collar they put on her was a nasty piece of work, but if she keeps messing with people…"

"A medical professional will have to decide if that is possible long term but be assured, we have no intention of letting her continue to use her powers without restraint and several methods of achieving that end."

On the television, Loki's voice dropped into something dark and vicious. "I will only say this once more, so listen carefully so you need not ask again: Only the most vile creatures can completely disregard the casualties of war without feeling some grief. Lives were lost here. Criminal liability for an action in almost any realm depends largely on someone choosing to cause some sort of harm to another; with the spear there was little choice to be had. Yet you would strip me of my agency even further by barring me from feeling or acting on grief for the loss of life unless I take all of the blame for the invasion upon my own shoulders? If you absolutely must, please consider that I also do this for my own sake. My hands did things I did not want them to do. It is healthy to be moving on by repairing the things I have broken, however accidentally, instead of trying futilely to put it in the past without any concrete resolution of the issue. These actions are also in accordance with my own faith. They give me back my own agency because these are things I choose to do, and to avoid doing them is to remain frozen as a victim unable to help myself. I did not have to come here, I could have gone to one of our more advanced allies and coordinated a proper defense there in relative safety, but I have chosen to take the less attractive path and aid the weakest of us instead despite that meaning I must face what was done here. This is who I am - this is who I have always been - and it pleases me greatly as the God of Mischief that the plan is to have a rabble of unruly children not yet old enough to have made use of the other viable planets in their home realm lay traps and build great works to take down the most feared tyrant in the galaxy."

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up much longer than I meant it to be.
> 
> Edit: The first non-character tag is **"Civil War Team Iron Man"** so if you are shocked that I had Loki take a side I can't help you go back in time to read the tags. I don't mind some rational debate or critique, but "the people on the other side did a bad thing so that makes the bad thing on this side not count" is not rational and would be laughed out of any court of law on the planet. When it comes to crossing borders illegally or attempted murder, two wrongs don't make a right.
> 
> Edit for the edit: In the hopes of getting the comments back on topic I'm turning off anonymous comments. If you have a criticism about anything in this story by all means have at it, but I didn't write the MCU plot holes and am not responsible for what other Team Iron Man stories include. I would have thought that this fandom had gotten less toxic with time and unfortunately I am the sort of person that has to answer if asked a question about the meta. Especially since talking about my fandoms online is most of my non-political social interaction in 2020.


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